Ex-Leominster man pleads guilty to fraud, receives jail sentence; two accomplices get three years probation

WORCESTER -- When Elis Samuel Reyes worked as a recruiter for a Leominster staffing agency in 2006, he used his knowledge of the Leominster-based Holiday Housewares going out of business to begin a four-year series of unemployment-fraud and larceny schemes that netted him $488,000.

Reyes, 28, formerly of Leominster, pleaded guilty in Worcester Superior Court on Tuesday to 32 counts of unemployment fraud, 34 counts of larceny over $250, five counts of forgery and six counts of identity fraud, and was sentenced to three to four years in state prison.

According to Assistant Attorney General Stephen Adams, Placement Pros, the agency for which Reyes worked, had an existing relationship with Holiday Housewares, which he used to his advantage.

SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / Alana Melanson
Cruz Teresa Colon, second from left, with her attorney, Jacqueline Dutton, and Atia Dobson, 33, of Fitchburg, far right, with her attorney, listen to a translator in Worcester Superior Court on Tuesday. Colon and Dobson each received three years of probation for their roles in the unemployment-fraud and larceny schemes orchestrated by Colon's son, Elis Reyes, in the Leominster area between 2006 and 2010.

Reyes contacted the state Division of Unemployment Assistance on behalf of the troubled business without its consent and changed its mailing address. He initiated claims for several fake "employees" of the business, and $53,000 in unemployment checks began flowing to his then-home address in Leominster, and into his bank account and those of others associated with him, including his mother, Cruz Teresa Colon, of Leominster.

A short time after his success with the Holiday Housewares venture, Reyes moved on to another agency, Snelling Staffing, where he orchestrated a similar scheme, stealing names and identities from the company's database to initiate unemployment claims that went directly to him, Colon and a 17-year-old girl Reyes was dating at the time.

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Using a false identity, Reyes requested placement of fake temporary employees from the first agency at a fake company, fleecing the agency of $77,000 in payments for work purportedly performed. His former co-worker, Atia Dobson, of Fitchburg, allegedly retrieved the checks and gave them to Reyes.

At the second agency, Reyes also "placed" several fake temporary employees at different companies -- including one that did not exist -- stealing $5,000 from his employer.

Reyes created his own staffing company in Leominster, Abeitus Solutions, with a former friend and colleague, who testified in front of a grand jury that the business appeared to be legitimate at the start. When it didn't take off, Reyes submitted more fraudulent unemployment claims for more than a dozen fake employees he said were terminated, sending $228,000 in benefits to him and Colon.

In March 2009, Reyes began another fake staffing company, Itane Ventures, which he used to again receive fraudulent unemployment benefits totaling $125,000 -- netting him an overall $406,000 in fraudulent benefits that were delivered to addresses both in Massachusetts and the Bronx, where Reyes moved.

The 34 larceny charges against Reyes were adjudicated as being a common and notorious thief, and a charge of intimidating a witness was dismissed at the district-court level.

Reyes was given an additional 2 1/2-year sentence, suspended for five years, with probation and ordered to pay $80,000 restitution within one year, with the remainder to be civilly judged. Details of the civil case, filed Tuesday, were not immediately available.

Judge James Lemire ordered that Reyes' prison sentence be served concurrently with any federal sentences he is serving. Reyes was previously sentenced to 10 months in federal prison in a 2010 currency-counterfeiting case out of Philadelphia. The court in that case ordered his imprisonment to follow a six-year sentence from another 2010 federal case for conspiring to distribute narcotics in New York.

Colon pleaded guilty to 13 counts of unemployment fraud and 13 counts of receiving stolen property over $250. The 13 charges of receiving stolen property were adjudicated as being a common and notorious receiver of stolen property.

Dobson was initially charged with larceny over $250 and six counts of identity fraud, but four of the identity-fraud charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Lemire acknowledged the women's guilty pleas but did not enter them, granting their attorneys' requests. Both were continued without a finding for three years with probation.

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